Android doze modes & how to fix it or at least, get used to it...

December 1, 2025

For most of the phone manufactures nowadays, battery life is more important than the phone's function itself. Every single brand has its own proprietary way of either saving battery time or, put in other words, removing a vital function of your phone that you rely on - notifications.I am pretty sure, you have wondered sometimes, why notification X is OK on Tuesday but NOT ok on Wednesday morning.

Some things you have to know and be aware of:

Your phone has different doze modes (you may know some modes of your Windows OS, like Hibernate, Standby, Screen-Off, etc.). Depending on the situation or time, your Android phone enters a certain kind of doze mode. Depending on the brand of your Android phone, the modes can be very different in depth.
It makes a huge difference, if your phone is charging right now (or over the night) or not. Having your phone on a charger rules out some deeper modes. See below.
Having your phone on DND or leaving it on the kitchen table over night while you sleep also makes a difference. There are some things to consider, like cellular activity, etc., but let's rule those out. You can't watch your phone's connection details all the time. It's just a phone.
Every action on the phone, like a push notification, wakes it and starts a new countdown for the next sleep or doze mode.

Notification Profiles and Prioritization

There's one more important thing to know and that may be new to you: every single App has a certain programmed notification profile (or, better said, level) in terms of prioritization: Messenger services, like WhatsApp or Telegram have a very high priority for push messages, meaning every push notification sent by those services should appear instantly on your phone - no difference if it's in deep standby or not. Allowing an App in its Android settings to use more battery is a nice idea, but in the end, it wont change a thing. So, keep the setting at "optimized" mode. It's just fine.

Other Apps, like banking Apps, have a low priority in push notifications. Why is that? It's is by design.You don't like it? Live with it. You can't do any thing about it. That's why some push notifications, like the confirmation for a transfer in your banking app, are visible and audible only, if you pick up your phone and unlock it. I am pretty sure, you've experienced this before.

Of course, this depends on the app you have. Programmers also point out, that this is a security feature: the app does NOT keep a continuously open channel to the push server, so, in theory, there are a fewer points to intercept. Believe it or not - that's on you.

Charging your phone in the night

Ever asked yourself why you get certain notifications from some Apps in the morning as usual but on some mornings, you don't get the exact same push notifications as the day before? This question has occured to me many times. And now I know that I can't do anything about it, so I can close that chapter: Most likely, you charged your phone that night. Charging your phone usually does not put it into deep doze mode. Or, your phone didn't move physically for a certain amount of time or didn't get a push notification for hours. Addressing this issue - believe it or not - there are some charging stations, which do either move your phone or just turn the charging on and off every hour or so to simulate use of your Android phone.

Doze Mode Apps

There are also certain Apps, like Doze Stopper, which continuously wake your phone. I tried it, and it did nothing, except lower the battery life. Why? Some say, the doze mode App does not take too much battery. But it does take a lot of battery in the background. This is because it hinders the phone going into doze mode. Of course, you will say, this is the feature. So, if you see a number like 2% or 3%, the background use is much much higher. Having it tested, most of the times, it makes no difference at all.

Bottom line: I asked myself, if this will get any better in the future. And no, it won't - it will always be a trade-off between battery life and your push notification comfort. Android has a clear disadvantage compared to IOS, because there are too many cooks in the kitchen. Once you understand how those push notifications work and who decides on priority, it's much easier to get used to it. Don't play around too much with your apps' and phone's battery settings. Use the doze mode app only if you think you need it. Of course, there are other ways to forbid the Android OS from going into doze mode, for example by adb shell ($ adb shell dumpsys deviceidle disable), but those commands stay in place only until the next reboot.